Point of Contact — March 25th

Without feeling arrogant or pretentious, today felt sublimely focused.

Sometimes the use of the word “sublime” feels arrogant for its lofty and elevated nature. Pretentious because using this word casually recognizes the rarefied experience of “sublime” in the relatively commonplace. Perhaps I am being judgmental and pretentious myself, but calling the commonplace sublime seems a bit self-indulgent. I typically consider sublime matters to be few and far between. Sublime is not typical, or if it is typical, it is the most typical. In my humble estimations, sublime experiences are akin to quintessence and momentousness. They are rarefied.

Somewhat paradoxically, and contradictory to what I just wrote, today’s performance felt both rarefied and commonplace – sublime and mundane. Perhaps sublime experiences of reality can become commonplace...

Point of Contact is a very hard piece. We stand, facing one another, maintaining eye contact, holding our forearms at a right degree angle such that the point of our index fingers is almost touching. We stand like this for well over an hour — our eyes never parting — our fingertips hopefully hovering just near the other’s. Standing for over an hour is hard. Maintaining eye contact for over an hour is trippy and mind-altering. Extending your lower arm and attempting to align one’s extended finger with another’s hurts. Sometimes the passive arm, which is simply hanging to the side, looses circulation and falls asleep.

My body fights to hold on to something — allowing for relaxation, freedom and unconstraint is a constant meditation of acknowledging breath, alignment, circulation and flow amidst relative stillness. The fight is actually more about letting go, finding an expanded release, broadening awareness to all things while simultaneously unifying them with focus.

My mind attempts to go elsewhere — past memories and supposed bullshit assert disassociations that distance the present moment. The mundane present is not always enough for my brain, which strives to make itself important by processing images having nothing to do with my current experience. The effort is actually in the allowing — allowing the chatter of the mind to let go and be with the moment as it transpires.

Today as I performed Point of Contact, mundane reality was sublimely present. My senses felt unified and poised to the multiplicitous experiences and currency of the moment. The moment was momentous. Each instance was quintessentially itself. The challenge of the piece was easier — more easeful. Its duration was effortless and endurable. Time passed evenly…The pot did not need to be watched. We were gently simmering with experiences…Yes, I did drift, but it was much easier to come back and be with my partner. What if “I” is outside of “me”?

In many respects I have Deborah Hay to thank for today. I felt her echo very much as I performed. Perhaps it is because I saw her perform her “Lecture on the Performance of Beauty” last night at Cooper Union’s Great Hall - which after a day of performing open-eyed meditation at the museum, left me more tired and distant then I would like to admit.

However, her meditations and my own meditations (which in many respects owe their lineage to her mentorship) were very helpful as I inspired a state of perceptual awareness and noticed the moment’s transpiration…Here is a selection of the koan meditations and supportive statements that surfaced today. They helped ease the work into a state of momentous play…

What if every cell in my body can perceive and surrender Beauty simultaneously?
What if here is now is what I need?
What if “I” is outside of “me”?
What if I can perceive “too much” as the same as “too little”?
I don’t need to do anything.
The wholebody — at once — the teacher.
Notice the feedback.
What if we?
What if the assumption of other’s suffering eases my own?
What if we share we?

I am very thankful for all I have learned from Deborah and am learning from Marina’s work.

V-Magazine: Interview with me and two other re-performers

http://vmagazine.com/article.php?n=14950

Schedule of Performances: Saturday, March 20th - Wednesday, March 31st

Saturday, March 20th
Point of Contact: 10.30-11.45am
Imponderabilia: 1-2.25pm
Imponderabilia: 4.45-6pm

Sunday the 21st
Imponderabilia: 11.45-1pm
Nude w/ Skeleton: 3.30-5.30pm

Monday the 22nd
Imponderabilia: 10.30-11.45am
Imponderabilia: 1-2.25pm
Point of Contact: 3.30-5.30pm

Wednesday the 24th
Relation in Time: 1-3.30pm

Thursday the 25th:
Point of Contact: 11.45-1pm
Point of Contact: 2.15-3.30pm

Friday the 26th
Imponderabilia: 10.30-11.45am
Point of Contact: 1-2.15pm
Relation in Time: 3.30-5.30pm

Saturday the 27th
Point of Contact: 4.45-6pm

Sunday the 28th
Point of Contact: 11.45-1pm
Nude w/ Skeleton: 3.30-5.30pm

Monday the 29th
Point of Contact: 11.45-1pm

Tuesday the 30th
Point of Contact: 11.45-1pm
Imponderabilia: 2.15-3.30pm
Imponderabilia: 4.45-6pm

Wednesday the 31st
Point of Contact: 11.45-1pm
Imponderabilia: 2.15-3.30pm

Relation in Time – March 18th

This is the fourth time I have performed Relation in Time. It is the first re-performance of the piece I have not struggled to stay awake while performing with my head bound to my partner’s – hair twisted together. Not that I have been falling asleep in past performances. However, each performance until today I have always lagged in energy over the two-and-a-half hours of having my hair bound, back-to-back with my compassionate partners. In the past three performances I have not just lagged in energy and drifted in thought, but periodically, yet always briefly, I have actually nodded off. This is pertinent when my head is bound to the back of another’s…I can feel my partner’s breath through the touch of our backs and the strain of hair…So, actually nodding off, head briefly bobbing and the consequent jerk of startling awake must be an odd sensation for my partner. It is jarring for me, I can then, only imagine the surprise of one’s head suddenly being tugged aback. However, today, I felt nearly completely present with the body of my partner. We were in union. We communicated via touch. Our backs, breath and hair conveyed subtleties of relationship – slight contact improvisational dances of sharing. Today I felt alive because each moment was an act of communication. We were present, I was awake and my thoughts – poised to the realness of two bodies relating in time – were superficial eddies and barely capable of causing distraction. I did not feel tired for an instant.

March 17th - Imponderabilia

As the initial excitement and adrenaline of performing this past week ebbs, I realize how the tone of my performances are shifting. Personal thoughts, and their moment-to-moment distraction, have inserted themselves into performances and reveal how the presence of mind and body are constantly at odds with one another. As thoughts assert their presence, my body slips back into habitual patterns of tension. I fall away from the richer experience of my momentous attentions. I don’t pay attention. Attention costs and paradoxically, is work that requires little effort.

I am reminded that meditation is an imponderable opportunity. As I ponder the performer in front of me - I am reminded that this exhibition can pass through me and us – sounds, people and their comments are just another manifestation of reality and I have the opportunity to be a gateway for this information to pass through the world – my world - the world spanning between the stream of our eyes. Like thoughts, each person and interaction is a fleeting chance for acknowledgment. Like thoughts to the experience of the moment, if I allow the interaction with museum patrons to pull me away from the performance I loose the potential of the next moment. I become distracted. Simply observing the person passing between us seems akin to observing passing thoughts. Observe, acknowledge and allow the next passerby the room to enter and pass between the energetic presence maintained by two performers facing one another.

This then becomes an opportunity for people to view their own interactions, not just with two naked bodies, but with themselves. Art as a mirror – that is if people choose to face themselves in our eyes and observe themselves in the process…More often then not, we seem to be not much more then a turn-style for their discomfort. They rarely make eye contact…Sometimes they acknowledge that they are passing between two very vulnerable, yet empowered people. If they are less distracted and more present, they tend to move a bit more slowly, with more intent, observing themselves and us as they pass.

…the old men who view her body with objectifying intent, the teenage girls who skip past us on the heels of their discomfort, the gay men who face me and are more intent to make eye contact, the demure well-to-do ladies who take extreme care in not touching as they pass our bodies…

We are offering these people a taste of themselves…that is if they care to be observant and tasteful. Most just seem to pass through and consume the experience like it is another snack. Most don’t even chew.

Exhibit Now Open to Public

Naked City: Marina Abramovic at MoMA

http://www.wmagazine.com/w/blogs/editorsblog/2010/03/11/naked-city-marina-abramovic-at.htm